Thomas Merton Quotes

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another

Thomas Merton

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness

Thomas Merton

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Thomas Merton

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony

Thomas Merton

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Thomas Merton

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.

Thomas Merton

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.

Thomas Merton

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell

Thomas Merton

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

Thomas Merton

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real

Thomas Merton

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

Thomas Merton

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Thomas Merton

Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results.